ROCKFORD — Construction of a wider South Main Street has spurred the city to build its first fire station in 25 years.

Station 3 at 1520 S. Main St. won’t have enough room to park its engine after the road is widened as part of a $19 million reconstruction that began last month between Cedar Street and Clifton Avenue. Construction of the station is expected to begin in June and be completed by March 2015.

The station will move to 804 Marchesano Drive, the site of an old strip mall adjacent to the Poor Clares, a community of Catholic sisters. The city expects to spend about $5.4 million to buy the property, raze the strip mall and build the fire station that will house an engine, ambulance, water rescue boat and reserve ambulances. The City Council must still approve a debt plan to fund the construction.

The new location is about six blocks from the current fire house, which was built in the 1950s. It provides quicker access to the southwest side of the city that Fire Chief Derek Bergsten expects would reduce response times. The department’s goal is for on-the-road travel time to take no longer than 5 minutes and 12 seconds for 90 percent of calls.

“This gave us our best travel times and improved our coverage for that area of the city,” Bergsten said.

The department has worked with the Illinois Department of Transportation to continue to have access to the current station during South Main construction.

“We have some of those delays now because (there are) only two lanes, so traffic doesn’t have anywhere to pull over,” Bergsten said. “Any chance (firefighters) get they try to stay off of South Main.”

The new station will be about 15,000 square feet, which is 12,000 square feet larger than the current building. The old station was built at a time when engines where shorter and smaller, meaning new trucks weren’t an easy fit even before road construction.

“We’ve had to special order trucks to fit in Station 3,” Bergsten said. “Now we’ll have higher doors and longer bays, so we don’t have to do that.”

He said architects have designed the new station borrowing features from the Montague branch library and St. Ambrogio Society buildings to help it fit into the character of the neighborhood.

Bergsten said the new station will be more accessible, providing more opportunities for community functions or tours by student groups.

“We have so few Rockford residents who become firefighters, especially so few minorities,” said Ald. Venita Hervey, who represents the Fifth Ward where the station is located, an area that is home to many black and Latino residents. “It’s going to be good for kids to be able to see it and touch it. We hope to have some better connections with the department.”